BEFORE: I don't know much about this film, but I know it's based on a book titled "The Bridge OVER the River Kwai". As a trivia geek, I have to know that the difference between "ON" and "OVER" in the title can make all the difference in, say, the Final Jeopardy! Round. Crossing another Oscar winner off the list tonight - Best Picture of 1957. And since I watched two films in the last week starring Ewan MacGregor, tonight I'll watch a war film starring the other Obi-Wan Kenobi, Alec Guinness. More trivia - you can anagram the letters in his name to form the phrase "genuine class".
THE PLOT: A British colonel co-operates to oversee his men's construction of a railway bridge for their captors - while oblivious to a plan by the Allies to destroy it.
AFTER: This film is a testament to the British spirit - the ability to maintain proper decorum and order, even in the worst of situations. In this case, a group of British soldiers is tasked with building a railway bridge - and their commander, Col. Nicholson, (Guinness), locks horns with the commander of the labor camp. Nicholson points out that forcing captured officers to perform manual labor is against the Geneva Conventions, so the officers are thrown into solitary confinement, and the bridge remains unbuilt.
However, the desperate Japanese commander eventually realizes that the imprisoned officers have construction experience, and before you know it, the officers have been released and have formed subcommitees, made time-management studies, and are practically running all phases of construction.
This becomes a rather complex issue - when forced to do manual labor in captivity, how hard should one work? And how well? Does efficiency constitute treason, or self-preservation?
Compare that to the attitude of the Americans in the camp, which is more like "escape, at any cost". The head Yank is played by William Holden (last seen in "Damien: Omen II"), and after defying the odds and escaping the camp, he's sent back on a mission. So the British build a bridge, and the American tries to blow it up - seems about right. The bridge becomes an obvious metaphor for the madness and pointlessness of war...classic.
RATING: 7 out of 10 unmarked graves
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